Features of Modern UI that you will miss in Classic UI

Features of Modern UI that you will miss in Classic UI 150 150 Sameer Mohammed

Introduction:-
In this article, we will see the features of modern SharePoint that are not there in classic SharePoint experience.

Modern SharePoint is whole new user experience. It’s more than a fresh look, it’s designed from the ground up to work on mobile devices, and it addresses dozens of usability issues. Lists and Libraries have the new look and the modern page is definitely easier to use and allows more advanced filtering and bulk editing.

In SharePoint Online, lists and libraries are modern by default; web part pages are modern if you create a “modern team site” or “communication site”.

You can also add new, modern pages to existing team sites (but not yet to classic “publishing sites”). Once a new page is set up, it can be set as the site home page, and the site will gain almost all the advantages of a fully modern team or communication site.

Differences between Classic and Modern SharePoint Features

ResponsivenessClassic SharePoint is partially responsive including all classic web part. Classic SharePoint is not mobile friendlyModern SharePoint comes with full responsiveness on all modern web parts. Modern SharePoint comes with Team sites, modern list and library structure and site pages. Modern SharePoint support all modern devices including mobiles, tablets and surface devices.Secure and FasterIn Classic SharePoint user have permission to add custom code (JavaScript), also have script editor and content editor web part that render on the server side that’s why it takes time to load on the browser with additional security issues.Modern SharePoint doesn’t allow any custom code even it does not provide any script editor web part for custom code that’s why is more secure and loads faster
The user can also edit pages in SharePoint designer.

Key FeatureClassic SharePointModern SharePoint
Custom master page and page layoutsIn Classic SharePoint, we are able to set custom master page and page layouts by Out of Box SharePoint.Modern SharePoint does not support any custom master page and page layouts. Modern SharePoint has its own layouts that are fully responsive including all modern web parts
List and Library improvementsClassic SharePoint list and library level configuration are most complicated task and there is no easy interaction with these controls. Classic SharePoint has ribbon containing all list and library configuration.Modern SharePoint has many lists and library level improvements including easier filtering, conditional formatting, and attention views, which have easy interaction.
The modern list also addressed 5000 list items threshold issues problem by automatically indexing.
Modern SharePoint does not have SharePoint ribbon so we miss some cool features that present in classic SharePoint including save as template, export to excel etc.
New featureClassic SharePoint also supports modern services but there are some limitation and configuration issues which are not in Modern SharePoint case.Modern SharePoint comes with very cool features that easy to configure and share data between these services including Flow, Forms, PowerApps, PowerBI etc. with responsiveness.
AlternateCSSUrl web propertySupportedSupported
Minimal Download Strategy (MDS)SupportedSupported
Web part supportsAll SPFx web part is supported in Classic pages.We can’t use already created “classic” web parts on “modern” pages but vice-versa are worked.
Development StrategyFor classic SharePoint Microsoft had SharePoint Add-in in the year 2013 for web part creation.

SharePoint add-in requires a lot of infrastructure and efforts to create add-in more it comes in two flavors: SharePoint-hosted and provider-hosted.

SharePoint add-in runs in an iframe.

For modern SharePoint pages, there is harePoint Framework (SPFx) which came out in the year 2016 for web part creation.

SharePoint framework rely on open source tooling which require fewer efforts.

SharePoint framework does not run in an iframe that’s why it capable of running in classic SharePoint site pages also.

Development CustomizationsClassic web parts support JSLink for list/form customizations.

Supports display templates, master pages offer search result rendering customizations

Modern web parts not supported JSlink in list/form customization.

Modern SharePoint development is client side using JavaScript frameworks like Angular JS, React JS, Node etc. all these open sources.

SharePoint framework (SPFx) is used to create modern web parts and extensions
SPFx extensions can help for Application Customizers, Field Customizers, and Command Sets.

Tools for Development CustomizationsSharePoint Designer

Infopath

SharePoint Workflows

Sandbox Solution

CustomActions

SharePoint Framework(SPFx)- Web part and Extention

PowerApps

Microsoft Flow

SharePoint SearchThe “classic” search experience can be found in SharePoint on-premise as well as in Office 365. ”Search Center” provides results from the search index.

Full control on the searchable strategy, define what results to be displayed with complete search customization

” Modern” search experiences have been popping up in Office 365 only.

Displaying relevant content, moreover, suggesting what is supposed to be useful to the current user but the modern search experience UI is not customizable.

SharePoint RibbonPresentNot present

How to Get Modern Experience

If you have an Office 365 subscription, you can go modern right now! Just go to the SharePoint Home page and click “+ Create Site” to create a modern Communication or Team site.
If you have an existing site in SharePoint Online, you probably already have modern lists and libraries. If the site doesn’t use the Publishing feature (such as a Team site), just create a new page (in the “Site Pages” library) and by default it will be modern.

List of Web Parts of Modern SharePoint Online pages

Once we add a modern page to a site, we also add and customize web parts, which are the basic building blocks of our page. These web parts are categories:
• Text, media, and content
• Discovery
• Communication and collaboration
• Business and intelligence
• Connectors

Summary:-
In this article, we saw some really cool features of Modern SharePoint experience which every developer should start using because it always better to prepare for the future.